Forever
by Bellatlas
Summary: When Zeb finds Sabine burning all of her artwork, he knows that something is bothering her.


**So I went to search for short Zeb and Sabine brotherly/sisterly fics and literally couldn't find a single one. So, uh…** _ **that**_ **needed to be fixed.  
If I was wrong and missed one, though, lemme know so that I can read it! ;)**

 **Also, for those of you who were wondering, this was renamed from "To Paint a Phoenix" to "Forever." Same story, though.**

* * *

When Zeb smells smoke while walking down one of the hallways of _the Ghost_ , he panics for a moment. After all, you don't really want your ship exploding into bits of ash and rubble in the vast expanse of hyperspace.

He lifts his chin and sniffs the air again, just to doublecheck. Yep, that's smoke if he's ever smelled it. Something's wrong, though. Smoke alarms aren't going off. While he may have a much better sense of smell than a human, he's pretty sure that he isn't better at detecting smoke than a smoke detector. And plus… is the smoke coming from _Sabine's_ room?

He takes a few tentative steps closer, sniffing the air again experimentally. Yes, it's definitely coming from Sabine's room. Ah karabast, had one of her explosives actually gone off in her room?

Any other day, he'd just knock on Sabine's door and wait for her to come out rather than just barging in, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

When he pulls the door open, the scene that he sees is… not the one he expected.

Sabine sits hunched over in one of the chairs next to her checkerboard table, gazing coolly at a trash bin in the near center of the room. Whatever is inside is burning, flames licking dangerously high over the mouth of the bin. She's positioned it perfectly so that the vent in her ceiling sucks up all of the smoke from… whatever is burning in her trashcan, before much of it can drift up to the smoke detector.

"What the heck are you _doing?"_ Zeb yells over the crackling fire.

Sabine looks up, the reflection of the fire blazing sharply in her already amber colored eyes. "What am _I_ doing? _You're_ the one who just burst into my room, you know."

Zeb just stares at her, dumbfounded. This is very unlike her, and frankly, he can't wait around for this small fire to turn into an utter disaster to figure out what's wrong.

"Look, I don't know what's gotten into you, but I have to go take care of this before something happens." He reaches forward and carefully, yet quickly, grabs the rim of the bin, letting out a growl when a small flame licks out and sears the side of a finger.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sabine cringe apologetically, but Zeb needs to move quickly so that he doesn't get burnt again and accidentally drop the bin. He walks towards the fresher just fast enough to be hasty but no so fast as to fan the flames, and tosses the bin into the shower, flicking the water on to finally extinguish the stupid fire.

Finally. He lets out a pent up breath and leans against the wall as he watches the flames die out, sticking his own hand under the cold running water to rinse off the burn before sucking in a sharp breath at the sting it creates. Slowly, the fire dies so that only ashes are left in the trashcan, and a few charred pieces of paper, their edges still an ember red.

Upon closer inspection, though, it's not just any paper that was in there burning. It's the good kind: the thick, heavy stuff that's almost like cardstock, but a bit more flexible. This is the paper that Sabine uses for her art. This is what she sketches and paints on.

Zeb reaches into the trash can, hand hovering about the paper for a moment to make sure no heat is still rolling of it that could still burn him, and carefully picks a piece up. It's charred pretty badly, but in the upper right corner, he can see the remnants of a detailed indigo-gold eye, impossibly realistic.

He sighs again, sifting through the now soggy ash for any other scraps that may have survived:

A concept sketch for a new design of the shoulder plate of Sabine's armor- this design with little green cubes and blue swirls is the first thing that he finds.

A gold and yellow scaled tail of some sort of animal (Zeb isn't sure what kind- the rest of the painting has been burnt away into ash) is next.

There is what seemed to be an unfinished sketch of an elaborate light-saber hilt, and last, but certainly not least, a phoenix.

It isn't the usual minimalistic design Sabine marks at every given opportunity that the crew has fallen in love with, though. As much as Zeb likes the crew's "logo," _this_ painting defines the word "masterpiece" in a whole new sense.

The edges of the paper are tainted by a blackened fringe, and the paper is stiff and yellowed, as if it has been left out in the sun to age for years, but most of the painting is still well in tact. Every feather of the bird breathes an air of power and life, the tips of some dusted in a thin coating of painted ash, and some feathers gleaming as if dipped in pure gold. Frankly, Zeb is half surprised that the bird doesn't start breathing and come to life, blazing its way out of the paper in front of his very eyes.

And the eye of the phoenix- an impossible blazing blue, contrasting perfectly against it's fiery red feathers. It's as if a lightsaber has melted itself just so that it could donate a drop of molten kyber crystal for this phoenix's eye. It has an odd kind of intelligence behind it, radiating complete and utter power. It's the only piece that has managed to escape the fire mostly unscathed… rather fitting, considering the subject of the painting.

It truly boggles Zeb's mind how something like this can be captured on a piece of paper… and Sabine had been trying to _burn_ it!

Zeb feels a growl rise up in the back of his throat and gathers up the pieces of paper that he saved, snatching the bin and stalking back to Sabine's room. Again, he doesn't bother knocking, and finds Sabine exactly where he left her.

She looks up at him with her chin in her hands, but doesn't say anything.

Zeb still isn't sure if he should berate her for doing something so stupid and… _Ezra-ish_ , or try to get to the bottom of what's really going on. With slumped shoulders, he opts for the latter. After all, he doesn't know the full story quite yet.

"Sabine, what was that all about," Zeb asks, surprisingly calm, all of the previous adrenaline having worn off.

"Nothing," Sabine shrugs. "Just testing out a new explosive."

"While the ship is going through hyperspace?" Zeb resists the urge to roll his eyes and goes to sit down on the other side of Sabine's table. "We both know that wasn't nothing."

Slowly, Zeb reaches into his pocket and pulls out all of the snips of drawings he managed to save, the phoenix included, and lays them all out carefully on the table. Sabine's eyes grow slightly.

"Why were you trying to burn these?"

The teen reaches out to touch one of the sketches- the one of a portion of her armor redecorated- and spins it so that she can see it rightside up.

"We're in the middle of a rebellion," she says slowly. "There's no room for … _art... "_ she flicks the armor sketch away from her, "when we're out trying to save the galaxy."

Her voice is confident, but her lower lip quivers and her eyes remain pasted down at her artworks on the table. It's clear that she doesn't believe a word of what she's saying, or at the very least doesn't _want_ to.

Zeb has never seen Sabine cry before, and karabast, he's not about to now.

"Of course there is, who put that idea in your head?" he asks.

"Nobody," Sabine says defensively. "I just… came to a realization."

Zeb just stares at her coolly. She'll crack eventually.

"Okay _fine,"_ she cedes dramatically when she realizes that Zeb just isn't buying it. "The other day- when we met with all of the others from Phoenix Squadron, I was showing my art to one of the other ships' crewmembers... " Sabine pauses, waiting for Zeb to catch on. When he remains silent, she continues. "And, he just… kinda lectured me on how I wasn't really dedicated to the rebellion if I'm just goofing off with paints half the time." She shrugs. "And he's right."

"Who?" Zeb growls, eyebrows drawing together. "Who told you that? I need a name." He stands up, hands balling into fists in anger as if he'd actually be able to track down this guy while the Ghost is in hyperspace. Just wait until he tells Hera, _Phoenix Leader_. Then again, maybe he shouldn't. If he does, Hera would _probably_ just try to be _diplomatic_ about the issue rather than just letting Zeb bash this guy's head into a wall.

"It doesn't matter, really," Sabine says, pulling another painting towards her, this time the eye. Zeb wonders idly whose eye it is.

"Yes actually," he nearly spits through bared teeth, "it does matter."

Sabine gives Zeb a glare that instantly silences him. He drops the issue for now but swears to himself that this is _not_ over.

"Anyway, kid, ignore that guy. It's not true."

"But it _is,"_ Sabine says back with more fervor.

Zeb sighs. He's really not good at this ' _encouragement'_ thing, but he'll give it a shot. "Sabine, do you know what every one of our greatest victories has in common?"

"What?"

"In the words of Ahsoka herself, 'hope.'"

Sabine quirks the corner of her lips up in a smile, though Zeb can't tell if she's trying not to laugh at him. He can't blame her if that's the case. Talking of 'hope' like he's a walking inspirational poster... it's very unlike him, to say the least.

"Just look at this." Zeb holds up the painting of the phoenix. " _This_ is hope."

 _"This_ is a _painting,"_ Sabine corrects, poking the paper Zeb holds up in its center. She's smiling, though, taking in what Zeb has to say.

"See, that's where you're wrong." Zeb puts the painting back down. "Truth is, we can't be there to help everyone in this whole messed up galaxy all the time. So, when we can't be there to help, it's things like this," he says, tapping on the edge of the phoenix, "that give them hope. Seeing things like _this_ are a promise to them that we are out there and working against the empire and that things _will_ get better. If anything, the rebellion is stronger because of what you do… not to mention that _I_ like our crew exactly the way it is."

Sabine smiles down at the table. "Thanks, Zeb, really."

"Ah, anytime," Zeb shrugs, beginning to feel awkward and embarrassed over his little speech. "Now, how about we go pin these sketches back up on your wall?"

Sabine bites the corner of her lip, looking over the sketches and paintings, eyes landing on the phoenix. "You can keep them if you want."

"What? Really?" Zeb's dumbfounded look is almost laughable.

"Consider it a token of my thanks."

Zeb nods, grinning.

It's only then that the fire alarms begin going off, sprinklers quick to follow.

Zeb is quick to cover the papers to prevent them from any further damage (though, frankly, the papers have proven to be able to stand up to a _lot_ already.) "Well those are a bit delayed," he notes.

"Seriously." Sabine curls her lip up at the smoke detector. "I really thought I had outsmarted that thing."

"The detectors in the hallway probably got some smoke while I was carrying the trash bin away."

"Still… had the fire been _real-"_

"It _was_ real," Zeb interjects, earning an eyeroll from Sabine.

"If it had been _dangerous,_ they'd have needed to go off sooner… I'll have to check that later."

"Right." Zeb looks down at the artworks that he's shielding. A drop from one of the sprinklers finds its way onto the paint of the eye. "I'd better get these to somewhere… _dry_."

Sabine nods as Zeb slips away back to his room, doing her best to find dry places for the more fragile artworks that she didn't burn already.

"Zeb!" Zeb turns on his heel to find Kanan running down the hall, hair soaking wet, out of it's usual ponytail, and plastered to his face. He looks like a wreck, if Zeb's to be honest. "Zeb, do you know what set off the alarm? We can't find any indication of a fire."

Zeb glances across the hall where Sabine's door is still open. Her eyes widen at Kanan's question and she shakes her head slowly.

"Ah- no. No idea."

Sabine visibly relaxes.

"Ugh," Kanan grumbles. "Alright. I have an Ezra to question, in that case."

Zeb does his best to (not completely) contain his laughter at that, and goes to deposit the artworks on his bottom bunk, where the sprinklers can't reach them, the phoenix resting on the top. This, he thinks, studying the phoenix once again, he'll keep forever.

* * *

 **Alrighty! So, I'm** _ **brand new**_ **to anything and everything Star Wars (working hard to catch up!) so please let me know if I made any errors.**

 **If you have time, reviews always mean the world! ;) Thanks!**


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